Wendy Reads and Writes: excerpt

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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Blog Tour: The Younger Woman: A Novel by Cate Ray-Women's Fiction

BLOG TOUR: THE YOUNGER WOMAN

Welcome to the Blog Tour for The Younger Woman: A Novel by Cate Ray

BOOK SUMMARY

A woman’s confession about her husband to an enigmatic stranger sparks a dangerous cat and mouse game in this riveting domestic thriller about divorce, manipulation, and revenge, perfect for fans of Sally Hepworth and Jeneva Rose.

Gabby and Fred have just begun to adapt to their new life as empty nesters when Gabby makes a stunning realization: She can't stand her husband.

One night at a bar, Gabby meets an enigmatic younger woman named Ellis, and in a haze of drunkenness, she confesses that she wishes Fred dead. Surely, she didn't expect anything to come of it, but when she tries to track Ellis down again, she realizes that Ellis might not have been who she said she was.

As Gabby begins to unravel the truth about Ellis and what Fred might be hiding, she is thrown into a whirlwind of lies and manipulation. How much is she willing to risk to expose the truth? And how will she get even?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cate Ray is the author of Good Husbands (2022, Park Row) and four previous novels of suspense published in the UK under the name Cath Weeks. She was named an Author to Watch by ELLE. She lives in Bath with her family.

EXCERPT

One

How did we get here—when did things become so bad? There are so many triggers and alarm bells, I’m overheating with the effort of trying to pick just one. And now Alice is leaving and if I don’t get ahold of myself I’m going to miss it.

Alongside our car, a student is saying goodbye to her parents, tucking in her camisole. Fred is watching her, instead of Alice. And I’m watching Fred, instead of Alice.

She’s at the door of her accommodation block, about to disappear inside. And then, suddenly, she falters, looking back at us, twisting her fingers together. She may as well be in pigtails and a gingham dress on her first day of school.

My seat belt snaps off. “Gabby…” Fred says.

I’m already halfway up the path, pulling her into my arms, inhaling her hair. Alice, sweet Alice.

I don’t want her to leave me. That’s the truth. I don’t want her to leave me with her father. I can’t bear it. Everything is heating, melting, as my entire system gives way to emotion.

And then I stop myself. I can’t do this to her. I pull back, grasp her shoulders, my arms rigid like tent poles holding us together. “You’re going to have a wonderful time, sweetheart. This is an exciting new adventure.”

She’s looking at me skeptically, but I don’t so much as breathe. I can be a tower for her. It’s only university; she’ll be home again in ten weeks.

“Thanks,” she says, her blue eyes filling, becoming sealike. I see my mother in her then and remove my hands from her shoulders in case I’m gripping too hard. “I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you too… Now go.” I give her a little pat, then watch as she keeps walking and this time she doesn’t look back.

I think I’m going to die as the door closes behind her, and then it’s me standing there, faltering, looking behind me, twisting my fingers together. Except that’s it not my parents I’m in turmoil about, but my husband. There’s a huge distance between us, much further than the twenty steps it would take me to reach him. He’s not even looking at me. His head is turned toward two attractive girls sitting underneath a tree. I could be setting off a distress flare and he wouldn’t notice.

Gazing at the door that swallowed Alice, I consider following her, hiding inside the laundry room for a few weeks. And then Fred honks the car horn and reluctantly I take those steps back to him.

Inside the car, I sit with my bag on my lap, staring straight ahead. He knows not to say anything, starts the engine. I’m glad he’s driving, leaving me free to sob until I’m as dry as a raisin. He’s a steady driver, I’ll give him that. We’re at that stage after twenty-one years of marriage where I’m grateful for his practical skills. I’m sure he feels the same about me and my lasagna.

As we slowly pull away, everything becomes a blur through my tears. I don’t know if it’s my hormones, but I’m overwhelmed: missing Alice, worrying about aging, wishing Fred wouldn’t look at this collage of youth as though I’m the crusty glue underneath that no one sees.

I’m uncomfortably hot, even with the air-conditioning on. It’s very warm for September—shorts, strappy tops; a parade of gorgeousness. And just like me and my jumbled thoughts, Fred doesn’t know which way to look.

Finally, as we pass through the entrance gates, he glances at me, patting my knee as though I’m man’s best friend. “She’ll be fine.”

Our youngest has left home and that’s all he can say. “Aren’t you upset?” I stop crying for a moment, curious about his response.

“Of course.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “But this is what you encouraged her to do, wasn’t it? And she worked hard enough to get there. What’s the point in being upset? We can’t keep her tied up at home.”

I don’t know about that. If there were a sane way to do it, I’d probably give it a go.

I hiccup, gazing out the window, adding emotional detachment to the list of differences between us. Here I am, breaking my heart. And he’s tapping the wheel to “summer breeze, makes me feel fine,” the salmon tint of his shirt making him seem pinker than he is. I bought that for him. And he needs a haircut. The ancient scar on his knee is shimmering where he’s caught a tan from all the golf he’s played this summer.

He’s good for fifty-two—doesn’t have to work as hard as I do to stay in shape, even though we’re the same age, our birthdays only a week apart; both Taurus. I always thought this was nice, but someone once said two bulls in one house? Brave! And it was one of those things that went around my head for longer than it should have.

I don’t think of myself as a bull; sometimes I find it difficult to ask for what I need. And Fred is too tall for a bull. He’s less goofy and cheeky now he’s middle-aged, but every so often I see the old him—the way he was, with curls, John Lennon glasses. I start crying again. And this time, it’s for us.

“She’ll be okay, won’t she?”

He looks at me. “Yes.”

We don’t say anything after that. I cry behind my shades all the way home, sucking my lip. It’s seventy-nine miles from Exeter to Shelby. It will be longer for Alice by train—nearly four hours. I’ll send her money so she can come home whenever she needs to.

What if she never needs to?

I hiccup again, but Fred doesn’t notice. I told him I was going to be okay today and he’s taken me at my word.

I’ve been dreading it. It was bad enough when Will left for Edinburgh. And now he has a girlfriend, Zara, who wears cutoff shorts with the pockets hanging out. She’s lovely, very polite; but she’s twenty and in love with my son and there’s a tiny part of me that wishes she weren’t.

At home, I don’t go straight inside but linger on the step, gazing at the baby oaks the children planted eight years ago when we moved in. The thing with trees is they stay where you put them.

Inside the house, it smells of Alice’s perfume, which nearly sets me off again.

“Will you be okay if I do an hour’s work?” Fred says, opening the door to the basement.

“Go ahead. I’m seeing Jam later.”

He smiles. “Well, if she can’t sort you out, then no one can.”

But I wanted it to be you.

That’s what I want to say. Yet it wouldn’t sound right, not anymore. Too much has changed between us. There have been too many little betrayals, and some not so little ones.

“I’ll give you a shout before I go,” I say. “Would you like a coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he calls out, already halfway down the stairs.

The kitchen seems bigger than it was this morning, the breakfast bar stools painfully empty, Alice’s cereal bowl in the sink; I might keep it there for a few days. Opening the fridge, I remove a Pinot Grigio, pour a glass, taking it outside with a jar of olives. A breeze is rustling the palm trees on the patio, fluttering the surface of the pool. I take a seat, a cardigan draped over my shoulders like some Hollywood star.

Sometimes it helps if I glamorize the situation, imagining myself delivering lines, acting out the pain on screen. Sometimes it doesn’t. To be honest, I feel a bit silly.

I put my cardigan on properly, unscrewing the jar lid, chewing an olive, my eye drawn again to the oaks lining the border. They’ll be beautiful this autumn. It seems cruel that children fly the nest to university as the leaves begin to fall. Why couldn’t it be spring—give parents half a chance?

I take a long drink of wine, twisting to look up at Alice’s turret. She wanted a sea view when we moved in. Ten years old and she knew a premium room when she saw it. Suddenly, I want to be up there, to lie on her bed among her abandoned clothes and stuffed toys.

Upstairs, the room is surprisingly cool. I set the wine bottle on her dressing table, pouring myself another glass. “Well, cheers, baby girl.”

Her bed looks inviting, despite the pile of ratty tracksuit bottoms. Don’t take those, Alice.

I lie down, drawing my knees to my chest, hugging Big Bear, who smells of Alice’s coconut shampoo. She still uses her bear as a pillow. I cry again, gazing at the photo stuck haphazardly on the wardrobe door: her and Will last year, by our pool, hands draped around each other.

My babies. Both gone.

I’m somewhere up high, on a clifftop, the sea crashing beneath me. It takes me a moment and then I remember that I’ve been here before, locked inside this ghastly dream, and then dread begins to drain through me because I know what’s about to happen.

I wrestle to wake up, but can’t. The rough gorse is grasping my ankles, locking me in place. I don’t want to watch but have to, can’t escape. He’s there now, standing too close to the edge. Fred? Or Will? Don’t let it be Will.

I writhe in panic, ripping my legs on the gorse. I call out, my voice lost against the roaring sea. Get away from the edge! Get away from there! I can’t move or even turn my head away. I know someone else is coming, can sense them drawing closer. I struggle again, screaming, as they shunt the man forward over the treacherous edge.

I fight as hard as I can, my face wet with tears. And then I’m free.

Sitting up, I stare around me, the back of my hair wet with perspiration. Letting go of Big Bear, I gather the wine bottle and glass, tiptoeing from Alice’s room. The house feels as empty and fragile as a greenhouse. Outside, the whisper of the sea sounds like passing traffic. I check the time on my phone: thirty minutes until I meet Jamillah.

In my en suite bathroom, I feel sick with fatigue. My tongue feels bulbous and there’s a sleep line running all the way from my cheek to my chest, as though I’m a cardboard cutout that’s been folded in two, ready to lie flat for the night.

I put on some makeup, fix up my hair, but that seems to accentuate my eyes—the fact that they’re puffy, swollen—so I let it down again, telling myself that this is as good as it’s going to get. I choose a T-shirt, jeans, and then head downstairs, knocking on Fred’s cave door.

It smells of computer—that hot wire smell. “I’m off.”

He looks up, removes his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose. “Is it that time already?”

I nod. “There’s pasta salad in the fridge.”

“Thanks, my love.” He frowns at me.

“You all right? You look a bit…”

“I dozed off. And I had that nightmare again.”

“It’s okay. Everything’s fine. I’m here. You’ll always have me.” He smiles, puts his glasses back on, focusing on the screen again. He works a lot of hours these days, more than he used to, but then so do I.

He’s perfectly right though. The kids fly in and out like swallows, but good old Fred will always be here.

“See you later,” I say.

As I go down the driveway to the side gate, I check my phone to see if Alice has messaged. She hasn’t. I wonder what she’s doing. I think about texting her, but don’t. It’s not going to help her to let go, move on.

It’s a ten-minute walk to the seafront. I don’t see anyone as I go. My thoughts swirl, froth about and by the time I enter the bar, I know I’m going to have to tell Jam what I finally admitted to myself today about Fred: I absolutely hate him.

BOOK INFORMATION

The Younger Woman

Author: Cate Ray

Publication Date: February 25, 2025

ISBN: 9780778368335

Park Row Paperback

Buy Links:

HarperCollins page: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-younger-woman-cate-ray?variant=42629286952994

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/397/9780778368335

Barnes & Noble: http://aps.harpercollins.com/hc?isbn=9780778368335&retailer=barnesandnoble

Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Younger-Woman-Novel-Cate-Ray/dp/0778368335

Social Links:

Author Website: https://cateray.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CateRayWriter/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cateraywriter/

Thank you to Cheryl Lee at Harlequin for inviting me to the Blog Tour.

Friday, June 7, 2024

Blog Tour: The Paris Widow: A Novel by Kimberly Belle-Mystery/Thrillers

BLOG TOUR: THE PARIS WIDOW

Welcome to the Blog Tour for The Paris Widow: A Novel by Kimberly Belle

BOOK SUMMARY

From USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Belle comes a deliciously twisty new thriller following a married couple vacationing in Paris whose trip takes a dark turn when the husband goes missing, dredging up secrets from both of their pasts, perfect for fans of THE PARIS APARTMENT.

When Stella met Adam, she felt like she finally landed a nice, normal guy – a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. She loves knowing she can always depend on Adam, which is why when he goes missing during a random explosion in Paris, she panics. Right after what is assumed to be a terrorist attack, she’s interviewed live on TV by reporters, begging anyone who knows anything about her husband’s whereabouts to come forward and is quickly dubbed “The Paris Widow.”

As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer in the black market for priceless antiquities, making deals with very high-profile and dangerous clients. Reeling from this news and growing suspicions about her husband, Stella can’t shake the feeling that she’s being followed. And with Adam assumed dead, she realizes that whoever was responsible for the bombing will come after her next. Everything – and everyone -- that Stella has tried to keep in her duplicitous past might be her only means of survival and finding out what really happened to Adam.

An irresistible and fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s most inviting locales, THE PARIS WIDOW explores how sinister secrets of the past stay with us – no matter how far we travel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kimberly Belle worked in marketing and nonprofit fundraising before turning to writing fiction. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Kimberly lived for over a decade in the Netherlands and currently divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam. She is the bestselling author of The Marriage Lie, Three Days Missing, Dear Wife, as well as The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust, Stranger in the Lake, My Darling Husband, and The Personal Assistant.

EXCERPT

Prologue

Nice, France

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

—Oscar Wilde

At Nice’s Côte d’Azur Airport, the pretty woman coming down the jetway looked like every other bleary-eyed traveler. Rumpled T-shirt over jeans with an indeterminate stain on the right thigh, hair shoved into a messy ponytail mussed from the headrest. A backpack was slung over her right shoulder, weighed down with items that weren’t technically hers but looked like they could be. She’d sorted through them on the seven-hour flight, just long enough to make the contents feel familiar.

“Don’t lose it,” the Turkish man said when he hung it on her arm, and she hadn’t.

The jetway dumped her into the terminal, and she trailed behind a family of five, past gates stretched out like spider legs, along the wall of windows offering a blinding view of the sparkling Mediterranean, a turquoise so bright it burned her eyes. The backpack bounced against her shoulder bone, and her heart gave a quiet, little jingle.

She made it through passport control without issue, thanks to her careful selection of the agent behind the glass. A man, first and foremost. Not too old or too young, not too handsome. A five to her solid eight—or so she’d been told by more than one man. This one must have agreed because he stamped her passport with an appreciative nod. French men were like that. One smile from a woman out of their league, and they melted like a cream-filled bonbon.

She thanked him and slid her passport into her pocket.

In it were stamps to every country in Europe and the Americas, from her crisscrosses over every continent including Antarctica, from her detours to bask on the famous beaches of Asia, Australia, the South Seas. More than once, she’d had to renew the booklet long before it expired because she’d run out of empty spots for customs agents to stamp. She was particularly proud of that, and of how she could look any way you wanted her to look, be anyone you needed her to be. Today she was playing the role of American Tourist On A Budget.

At baggage claim, she slid the backpack down an aching shoulder and checked the time on her cell. Just under six hours for this little errand, plenty of time assuming she didn’t hit any unexpected roadblocks. If she didn’t get held up at customs, if the taxi line wasn’t too long, if traffic on the A8 wasn’t too awful, which it would be because getting in and out of Monte Carlo was always a nightmare at this time of year. If if if. If she missed the flight to London, she was screwed.

A buzzer sounded, and the baggage carousel rumbled to a slow spin.

At least she didn’t look any more miserable than the people milling around her, their faces long with jet lag. She caught snippets of conversation in foreign tongues, German, Italian, Arabic, French, and she didn’t need a translator to know they were bitching about the wait. The French were never in a hurry, and they were always striking about something. She wondered what it could be this time.

Thirty-eight eternal minutes later, the carousel spit out her suitcase. She hauled it from the band with a grunt, plopped the heavy backpack on top and followed the stream of tourists to the exit.

Walk with purpose. Look the customs agent in the eye. Smile, the fleeting kind with your lips closed, not too big or too cocky. Act breezy like you’ve got nothing to prove or to hide. By now she knew all the tricks.

The customs agent she was paired with was much too young for her liking, his limbs still lanky with the leftovers of puberty, which meant he had something to prove to the cluster of more senior agents lingering behind him. She ignored their watchful gazes, taking in his shiny forehead, the way it was dotted with pimples, and dammit, he was going to be a problem.

He held up a hand, the universal sign for halt. “Avez-vous quelque chose à déclarer?”

Her fingers curled around the suitcase handle, clamping down. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I don’t speak French.”

That part was the truth, at least. She didn’t speak it, at least not well and not unless she absolutely had to. And her rudimentary French wasn’t necessary just yet.

But she understood him well enough, and she definitely knew that last word. He was asking if she had something to declare.

The agent gestured to her suitcase. “Please, may I take a look in your luggage?” His English was heavy with accent, his lips slick with spit, but at least he was polite about it.

She gave a pointed look at the exit a few feet away. On the other side of the motion-activated doors, a line of people leaned against a glass-and-steel railing, fists full of balloons and colorful bouquets. With her free hand, she wriggled her fingers in a wave, even though she didn’t know a single one of them.

She looked back at the agent with another smile. “Is that really necessary? My flight was delayed, and I’m kind of in a hurry. My friends out there have been waiting for hours.”

Calm. Reasonable. Not breaking the slightest sweat.

The skin of his forehead creased in a frown. “This means you have nothing to declare?”

“Only that a saleslady lied to my face about a dress I bought being wrinkle resistant.”

She laughed, but the agent’s face remained as stony as ever.

He beckoned her toward an area behind him, a short hallway lined with metal tables. “S’il vous plait. The second table.”

Still, she didn’t move. The doors slid open, and she flung another glance at the people lined up outside. So close yet so far.

As if he could read her mind, the agent took a calculated step to his left, standing between her and the exit. He swept an insistent arm through the air, giving her little choice. The cluster of agents were paying more attention now.

She huffed a sigh. Straightened her shoulders and gave her bag a hard tug. “Okay, but fair warning. I’m on the tail end of a three-week vacation here, which means everything in my suitcase is basically a giant pile of dirty laundry.”

Again, the truth. Miami to Atlanta to LA to Tokyo to Dubai to Nice, a blur of endless hours with crummy movies and soggy airplane food, of loud, smelly men who drank vodka for breakfast, of kids marching up and down the aisles while everybody else was trying to sleep. What she was wearing was the cleanest thing she had left, and she was still thousands of miles from home.

She let go of the handle, and the suitcase spun and wobbled, whacking the metal leg of the table with a hard clang. Let him lug the heavy thing onto the inspection table himself.

She stood with crossed arms and watched him spread her suitcase open on the table. She wasn’t lying about the laundry or that stupid dress, which currently looked like a crumpled paper bag. He picked through her dirty jeans and rumpled T-shirts, rifled through blouses and skirts. When he got to the wad of dirty underwear, he clapped the suitcase shut.

“See?” she said. “Just a bunch of dirty clothes.”

“And your other bag?”

The backpack dangling from her shoulder, an ugly Tumi knockoff. Her stomach dropped, but she made sure to hold his gaze.

“Nothing in here, either. No meat, no cheese, no forgotten fruit. I promise.”

She’d done that once, let an old apple sink to the bottom of her bag for a hyped-up beagle to sniff out, and she paid for it with a forty-five minute wait at a scorching Chilean airport. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.

“Madame, please. Do not make me ask you again.”

The little shit really said it. He really called her madame. This kid who was barely out of high school was making her feel old and decrepit, while in the same breath speaking to her like she was a child. His words were as infuriating as they were alarming. She hooked a thumb under the backpack’s strap, but she didn’t let it go.

And yet what choice did she have? She couldn’t run, not with those senior agents watching. Not with this pubescent kid and his long, grasshopper limbs. He’d catch her in a hot second.

She told herself there was nothing to find. That’s what the Turkish man had promised her with a wink and a smile, that nobody would ever know. He swore she’d cruise right on through customs. And she had, many, many times.

As she slid the backpack from her arm with another dramatic sigh, she hoped like hell he wasn’t lying. “Please hurry.”

The agent took the bag from her fingers and emptied it out on the table. He took out the paperback and crinkled magazines, the half-eaten bag of nuts with the Japanese label, the wallet and the zippered pouch stuffed with well-used cosmetics that had never once touched her face. He lined the items up, one after the other, until the contents formed a long, neat row on the shiny metal surface. The backpack hung in his hand, deflated and empty.

She lifted a brow: See?

But then he did something she wasn’t expecting. He turned the backpack upside down, just…upended the thing in the air. Crumbs rained onto the table. A faded receipt fluttered to the ground.

And there it was, a dull but discernible scraping sound, a sudden weight tugging at the muscles in his arm, like something inside the backpack shifted.

But nothing else fell out. There were no internal pockets.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” With a clanging heart, she pointed to the stuff on the table. “Can I put that back now? I really have to go.”

The agent stared at her through a long, weighted silence, like a held breath.

Hers.

He slapped the backpack to the table, and she cringed when he shoved a hand in deep, all the way up to his elbow. He felt around the sides and the bottom, sweeping his fingers around the cheap polyester lining. She saw when he made contact with the source of the noise by the way his face changed.

The muscles in her stomach tightened. “Excuse me, this is ridiculous. Give it back.”

The agent didn’t let go of the backpack. He reached in his other hand, and now there was another terrifying sound—of fabric, being ripped apart at the seams.

“Hey,” she said, lunging for the backpack.

He twisted, blocking her with his body.

A few breathless seconds later he pulled it out, a small, flat object that had been sewn into the backpack lining. Small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Almost like he’d been looking for it.

“What is this?” he said, holding it in the air between them.

“That’s a book.” It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it wasn’t just any book. It was a gold-illuminated manuscript by a revered fourteenth-century Persian poet, one of the earliest copies from the estate of an Islamic art collector who died in Germany last year. Like most of the items in his collection, this one did not technically belong to him.

“I can see it’s a book. Where did you get it?”

Her face went hot, and she had to steady herself on the metal table—the same one he was settling the book gently on top of. He turned the gold-leafed paper with careful fingers, and her mind whirled. Should she plead jet lag? Cry or pretend to faint?

“I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

This, finally, was the truth. Today was the first time she’d seen the book with her own eyes.

The agent looked up from the Arabic symbols on the page, and she didn’t miss the gotcha gleam in his eyes. The way his shiny forehead had gone even shinier now, a million new pinpricks of satisfied sweat. His gaze flitted over her shoulder, and she understood the gesture perfectly.

He was summoning backup.

She was wondering about French prison conditions.

His smile was like ice water on her skin. “Madame, I must insist you come with me.”

BOOK INFORMATION

THE PARIS WIDOW

Author: Kimberly Belle

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9780778307976

Format: Trade Paperback

Publisher: Harlequin Trade Publishing / Park Row Books

Price $18.99

Buy Links:

HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-paris-widow-kimberly-belle?variant=41107486801954

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-paris-widow-original-kimberly-belle/20673937?ean=9780778310723

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-paris-widow-kimberly-belle/1144012778?ean=9780778307976

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=paris+widow&i=stripbooks&crid=4KU7XSQ0O5YV&sprefix=paris+widow%2Cstripbooks%2C83&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.kimberlybellebooks.com/

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/kimberlybelle

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KimberlySBelle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlysbelle/

Thank you to Justin Sha at Harlequin Trade Publishing/ Park Row for inviting me to the Blog Tour.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Blog Tour: Just The Nicest Couple: A Novel by Mary Kubica-Mystery/Thriller

BLOG TOUR: JUST THE NICEST COUPLE

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Just The Nicest Couple: A Novel by Mary Kubica

BOOK SUMMARY

A husband’s disappearance links two couples in this twisty thriller from New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica

Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found.

Lily Scott, Nina’s friend, and coworker think she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Kubica is a New York Times bestselling author of thrillers including The Good Girl, The Other Mrs., and Local Woman Missing. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold over two million copies worldwide. She’s been described as “a helluva storyteller” (Kirkus) and “a writer of vice-like control” (Chicago Tribune), and her novels have been praised as “hypnotic” (People) and “illuminating” (L.A. Times). She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and children.

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

I gasp and stagger backward. My hand goes to my mouth, bear- ing down.

My brain screams at me to run. Run.

I can’t at first. Shock and fear hold me captive. They keep me from moving, like a ship that’s dropped anchor. I’m moored to this spot, my eyes gaping in disbelief. My breath quickens and I feel the flailing of my heartbeat in my neck, my throat and in my ears.

Run, my brain screams at me. Go. Fucking run.

There is movement on the ground before me. The sound that comes with it is something heathen and raging, and some part of me knows that if I don’t go now, I may never leave this place alive.

I turn away. It’s instantaneous. One minute I’m unmoving and the next I’m moving so fast that the world comes at me in vague shapes and colors, streaks of brown and blue and green. I barely feel the movement of my legs and my feet as I run. I don’t feel the impact of my shoes colliding with the earth, moving quickly across it. I don’t look back, though I want more than anything to steal a look to know that I’m alone. That I’m not being followed. But I don’t look. It’s too risky. Looking back would cost precious seconds that I don’t know that I have. If I do, those seconds could be my last.

Sounds come, but I’m so disoriented that I don’t know where they come from. Is it only my pulse, the rush of blood in my ears?

Or is someone there?

I feel something tangible against my hair and then my spine. My back arches. I jerk away, pitching forward, landing hard on my hands and knees.

The world stops moving.

I have only two thoughts in that moment: staying alive, and that this isn’t the way it was supposed to happen.

Christian

Lily is sitting on the leather chair in the family room when I come in. Her back is to me. I see her from behind, just her long brown hair spilling down the back of the chair. She stares toward the TV on the opposite wall, but the TV is off. It’s just a black box, and in it, I see a murky reflection of Lily on the screen, though I can’t tell if her eyes are open or shut.

“Hey,” I say, coming in through the garage door, closing it quietly and stepping out of my shoes. I set my phone and keys on the counter, and then ask, “How was your day?”

It’s getting dark in the house. Out the window, the sun is about to set. Lily hasn’t bothered with the lights, and so the in- side of the house is colorless and gray. We face east. Any pretty sunset is the other way. You can’t see it from here, if there even is one to see.

Lily says nothing back. She must have fallen asleep, sitting upright in the chair. It wouldn’t be the first time. She’s been extremely tired lately. The pregnancy is getting the best of her, not to mention that she’s on her feet teaching all day. These two things in combination exhaust her. It used to be that Lily would be in the kitchen, cooking dinner when I got home, but these last few weeks, she comes home from work ready to drop. I don’t mind that she’s not cooking. I’ve never been the kind of person to need a home-cooked meal after work, but that’s the way Lily was raised. Her mother did it for her father, and so she thinks she should do it for me. She’s been apologetic that she hasn’t had it in her to cook dinner, but she’s been queasy, too, and the last thing she needs to be doing is cooking for me. I called from the car and ordered takeout already; it will be here any minute.

I step quietly into the family room. I come around to the other side of Lily to face her. Lily isn’t asleep like I thought. Her eyes are open but her expression is blank. Her skin looks gray, washed-out like the room, and I blame the poor lighting.

Lily’s head turns. She looks up at me as if in slow motion.

“Hey,” I say again, gently, smiling. “You okay? Did I wake you?”

I flip on a side table light, and she winces from the bright- ness of it, her eyes taking time to adjust. I apologize for it, realizing that her pale face had nothing to do with the lack of light.

In the warmth of the lamp’s glow, I see that Lily’s hair is wet. She wears maroon-colored joggers and a sweatshirt. She’s showered and changed since coming home, which is more than she usually does. Usually she falls flat on the couch and doesn’t leave until it’s time to go to bed.

I drop to my knees in front of her. I reach forward and run a hand the length of her hair. “You look exhausted, babe. Do you want to just go to bed? I can help you up. Takeout should be here soon. I’ll bring it up to the room for you when it gets here.”

Lily blinks three times, as if to clear the fog. She finds her voice. It’s husky at first, dry, like after a day of shouting at a football game, which is not that different than a day of teach- ing rowdy high school kids math. “No,” she says, shaking her head, “I’m fine. Just tired. It was a long day.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t mind dinner in bed myself.” I had a long day too, but it doesn’t seem right to compare them when only one of us has another human growing inside of them.

“That sounds messy,” she says.

“I promise I’ll be neat.”

Lily smiles and my heart melts. I love it when she smiles at me. “When are you ever neat?”

“Never,” I say, feeling better if she can still poke fun at me.

I’ve done my research on pregnancy and childbirth. I’ve read that the fatigue women feel during the first trimester is maybe the most tired they’ll feel in their whole lives. Growing a human is exhausting. Caring for one is too, but we’re not there yet.

“You need anything?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

Takeout comes. I convince Lily to come sit on the couch with me, where we both fit. We watch TV and, as we do, I ask her about her day and she asks me about mine. She’s quieter than usual tonight. I do most of the talking. I’m a market research analyst, while Lily teaches high school algebra. We met in college over of our shared love of math. When we tell people that, it makes them laugh. We’re math nerds.

When it’s time for bed, Lily goes up to the room before me. From downstairs, I hear the sink run as she washes up. I clean up from dinner. I throw the takeout containers in the trash. There is a package waiting on the front porch. I step outside to get it, where the night is dark, though the sky is clear. It must be a new moon.

Lily is standing at the top of the stairs when I come back in. She’s there in the upstairs hall, standing in the dark, backlit by the bedroom light. Gone are the maroon sweats she wore ear- lier. She has on my flannel shirt now. Her legs are bare, one foot balanced on the other. Her hair is pulled back, her face still wet from washing it.

“Don’t forget to lock the door,” she says down over the rail- ing, patting her face dry with a towel.

I wouldn’t have forgotten to lock the door. I never do. It’s not like Lily to remind me. I turn away from her, making sure the storm door is shut and locked, and then I push the front door closed and lock the dead bolt too.

Our house sits on a large lot. It’s old on the outside, but has a completely revamped, modern interior. It boasts things like a wraparound porch, beamed ceilings, a brick fireplace—which Lily fell in love with the first time she laid eyes on the house, and so I knew I couldn’t say no despite the price—as well as the more modern amenities of a subzero fridge, stainless steel appliances, heated floors and a large soaker tub that I was more enthusiastic about. The house is aesthetically pleasing to say the least, with an enormous amount of curb appeal. It practically broke the bank to buy, but felt worth it at the time, even if it meant being poor for a while.

In the backyard, the river runs along the far edge of the prop- erty, bound by a public hiking and biking trail. We were worried about a lack of privacy when we first moved in, because of the trail. The trail brought pedestrians to us. Strangers. People just passing by. For most of the year, it’s not a problem. The leaves on the trees provide plenty of privacy. It’s only when they fall that we’re more exposed, but the views of the river are worth it for that small sacrifice.

“Done,” I tell her about the locks, and she asks then if I set the alarm. We’ve lived here years and hardly ever set the alarm. I’m taken aback that she would ask.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

Lily says, “Yes, fine.” She says that we have an alarm. We pay for it. We might as well use it. She isn’t wrong—it’s just that she’s never wanted to before.

I set the alarm. I make my way around the first floor, turning off lights. It takes a minute. When I’m done, I climb the stairs for the bedroom. Lily has the lights off in the room now. She stands at the window in the dark, with her back to the door.

She’s splitting the blinds apart with her fingers and is looking out into the dark night.

I come quietly into the room. I sidle up behind Lily, setting my hand on the small of her back and asking, “What are you looking at?” as I lean forward to set my chin on her shoulder, to see what she sees.

Suddenly Lily reels back, away from the window. She drops the blinds. They clamor shut. I’ve scared her. Instinctively, her hands rise up in self-defense, as if to strike me.

I pull back, ducking before I get hit. “Whoa there, Rocky,” I say, reaching for her arms.

Lily’s hands and arms remain motionless, suspended in air.

“Shit, sorry,” she says, knowing how close she came to im- pact. The realization startles us both.

“What was that?” I ask as I gently lower Lily’s arms. Lily isn’t usually so jumpy. I’ve never seen that kind of reaction from her.

She says, “I didn’t know it was you.”

“Who did you think it was?” I ask, as a joke. She and I are the only ones here.

Lily doesn’t answer directly. Instead she says, “I didn’t hear you come up the stairs. I thought you were still downstairs.”

That doesn’t explain it.

“What are you looking at?” I ask again, gazing past her for the window.

“I thought I heard something outside,” she says.

“Like what?”

She says that she doesn’t know. Just something. We stand, quiet, listening. It’s silent at first, but then I hear the voices of kids rising up from somewhere outside. They’re laughing, and I know there are teenagers clowning around on the trail again. It wouldn’t be the first time. They never do anything too bad, though we’ve found cigarette butts and empty bottles of booze. I don’t get mad about it. I was a stupid teenager once. I did worse.

I go to the bed. I pull the blankets back. “It’s just dumb kids,

Lily. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Come to bed,” I say, but, even as she turns away from the window and slips under the sheets with me, I sense Lily’s hesitation. She’s not so sure.

Excerpted from Just the Nicest Couple @ 2023 by Mary Kyrychenko, used with permission by Park Row Books.

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Just the Nicest Couple

Mary Kubica

On Sale Date: January 10, 2023

9780778333111, 0778333116

Hardcover

$28.99 USD, $35.99 CAD

Fiction / Thrillers / Domestic

320 pages

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